[Advaita-l] Mimamsa: mental perception as pramANa

[Ananta Bhagwat]

----- Original Message ----
From: Praveen Bhat
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008
Subject: [Advaita-l] Mimamsa: mental perception as pramANa

Jaimini accepts three pramANa-s (pratyaksha, anumAna, Agama); Prabhakara accepts five pramANa-s (add upamAna, arthApatti); and Kumarila accepts all six pramANa-s (add anupalabdhI).  Sabara has his own views too.

mImAMsaka-s are hard nose realist except for their supreme faith in Vedas, particularly in karma-kAnDa. They do not accept Yogic intuitive experience since (and which) is not cognized directly through senses.  Yogic intuition of past experience is also treated as memory rather than direct experience.

mImAMsaka-s accept pain and pleasure as perception when it is experienced directly through senses. Since dreams and dream objects are treated as a kind of manifestation of memory or remembrance, and the pain and pleasure caused by memory is not directly sensuous, their experience is not treated as perception.

Though Jaimini, Kumarila, Prabhakara, and Sabara had different shades of opinions on pramANa-s (including perception), they appear to have common opinion about directness of perception and Yogic intuition not qualifying the criteria of direct perception.

If you want the satisfaction of referring to original Sanskrit Text of Jaimini's sUtra-s (and lot more of Vedic literature in Sanskrit) you may visit 
http://is1.mum.edu/vedicreserve

For practical purpose Radhakrishnan's and Dasgupta's volumes in English are good enough (the later is perhaps too opinionated but scholarly - its historical perspective of gItA in vol II is quite interesting).

ananta